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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Our little getaway to Le Chateau

A couple weeks ago my husband and I took a little weekend vacation sans children (well, except for the latest little bean which we just couldn’t leave behind!). It was lovely. We try to get away for a couple nights by ourselves every year which can be tricky, but this year in spite of our almost 2 year old getting sick the day before we left, it worked out.
We went to a larger town a few hours away which was the perfect distance. It didn’t require hours and hours of driving and it was in many ways very different from where we live.
The first night we dined at a most interesting restaurant. It is called Le Chateau and this is what you see when you pull up:
Isn’t it gorgeous?
This French restaurant is housed in a historic mansion and is run by two chefs, who are actually husband and wife. The wife has a most exquisite French accent and is a most gracious hostess. Her pronunciation of my husband’s name on the voicemail confirming our reservations is something worthy of imitation. He agrees. : )
The food is wonderful. The menu is rather small, but what they do, they do well. We started off our meal with an amuse-bouche of chilled asparagus veloute. It was delicious; I liked it better than my husband who is a bit skeptical of cold soup however. Although I had heard of the term before, I thought our server told us that this was “Amish brew” when she brought it out to us and I had her repeat it. I was wondering what on earth Amish brew was!!!
Then we got a platter of bread, whipped butter, and olive oil for dipping. The bread was amazing! There was the traditional French baguette and then a more flavorful foccaccia-type bread that was delicious dipped in olive oil.
I ordered a salad as I was very very hungry. It again was wonderful. The flavors were not too intense yet were definitely not your average variety. I love balsamic vinaigrette and it was perfect on this asparagus, tomato confit, snow pea, and spring green mix.

(My husband is trying to decide what he should order!)

I ordered a pasta dish with scallops and was not disappointed. Yum!!!! The scallops were so succulent, and they went well with the fettucine and roasted red peppers.

So, so delicious and full of flavor.

My husband got the little neck clams with a wine sauce and angel hair pasta. It was also delicious but being a scallop lover I, of course, preferred mine.

His main dish came with a bowl of lemon water for finger cleansing:
I almost forgot!!! Our surroundings!! We had requested the Peacock Room and it did not disappoint. What was especially lovely was that we had this room all to ourselves for most of our meal!!

(Look at that floor!)

Behold the peacock:

Every touch was perfection. This house was restored with great care.
I wish I had taken a picture of the ladies’ restroom! It also was beautiful.
For our final course I chose a Pear Champagne sorbet. I devoured it before I even took a picture. It was so refreshing and delicate, just what I wanted after the meal. My husband ordered a pear tart and it was also good, but just didn’t hit the spot like the sorbet did.
We had excellent French pressed coffee with our dessert and my husband got all fancy and tried the brown sugar lumps.
I enjoyed the meal!
We had a wonderful weekend, and this meal was one of the main highlights for me. What fun! I hope to go again.
Delightful.